Imaging apparatus, such as photographic film cameras and electronic cameras, and in particular their optical assemblies, have inherent aberrations which can degrade the quality of images captured by such apparatus. One kind of aberration is a distortion, which refers to a change in the geometric representation of an object in the image plane. For instance, a rectangle might be reproduced with a pincushion or a barrel shape—hence the reference to pincushion distortion or barrel distortion. Another type of aberration, referred to as chromatic aberration, results from the fact that different wavelengths or colors of light are refracted by different amounts by an optical assembly. A further type of aberration is a field dependent aberration, where some characteristic, such as the brightness, of an image pixel is changed in the image plane in proportion to its position in the field, such as its distance from the center of the image.
Chromatic aberration appears when a lens is transmitting polychromatic light (many colors). Since the index of refraction of optical glass is wavelength dependent, the red, green and blue components bend differently at an optical interface in the lens. This leads to longitudinal (axial) and/or lateral chromatic aberration effects. When a lens fails to focus various colors sharply in the same plane, the lens is said to exhibit longitudinal (axial) chromatic aberration. In longitudinal chromatic aberration, the three components are brought to focus on different planes in the image space, which gives a color blurring effect. Thus, longitudinal chromatic aberration arises due to the focal length varying with wavelength (color). In lateral chromatic aberration, color components from a single point are brought to focus to different points on the same image plane, resulting in a lateral shift of the image. This has the effect of magnifying the three colors differently and can be visually seen as color fringing. Thus lateral chromatic aberration can be seen as an effect due to magnification varying with wavelength.
A great deal of the complexity of modern lenses is due to efforts on the part of optical designers to reduce optical aberrations. In certain cases, such as with single use film cameras or inexpensive digital cameras, it may be economically difficult to avoid usage of inexpensive optics. Unfortunately, as explained above, such optics possess inherent aberrations that degrade the quality of images formed by the optics. Consequently, it is desirable to compensate for these aberrations in the reproduction process (either in the capture device or in a host computer) so that final images free of aberrations may be obtained. In order to characterize these aberrations, the ability of a lens to transfer information from the object to an image plane is represented as a modulation transfer function (MTF). A lens MTF is a measure of how well the original frequency-dependent contrast of the object is transferred to the image.
In a typical camera, in addition to distortion and chromatic aberrations, the image formed at a focal plane (where the film or image sensor is located) can be blurred as a function of proximity to the optical axis of the optical assembly. For such field dependent aberrations, the further away from the optical axis (normally, the center of the image), the more the image is blurred. The resultant image therefore has an MTF that is a function of radial distance from the center of the image. The problem is exaggerated with images originating from inexpensive cameras, such as single use film cameras. Because of their simple optics or because the film may not be located in the position of best focus throughout the focal plane, single use film cameras tend to have significant sharpness loss with movement away from the optical axis toward the edges of the frame. Consequently, it is also desirable to compensate for these aberrations in the reproduction process (either in the capture device or in a host computer) so that final images free of field dependent aberrations may be obtained.
Some aberrations, specifically chromatic aberrations, are channel dependent aberrations in the sense that each color channel, e.g., red, green and blue channels, provides a different amount of the aberration artifact in the image plane. It has also been observed that some field dependent aberrations, such as position dependent blur, are also channel dependent. Consequently, a different amount of correction would ideally be provided for each color channel at the image plane. For instance, lens designers typically provide complicated, and therefore expensive, designs to differentially control the light rays according to wavelength in order to minimize such artifacts.
Especially if they are intended for consumer use, digital cameras, which are inherently more complex and expensive than simple film cameras, such as single use film cameras, must control cost in any way possible. The camera optics is a typical candidate for cost reduction, and channel-dependent artifacts thus become a concern. Despite such image quality concerns, it is usually desirable to provide a finished image file that is corrected for camera-related influences.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.